The morningness–eveningness questionnaire (MEQ) is a self-assessment
questionnaire
A questionnaire is a research instrument that consists of a set of questions (or other types of prompts) for the purpose of gathering information from respondents through survey or statistical study. A research questionnaire is typically a mix of ...
developed by researchers James A. Horne and Olov Östberg in 1976. Its main purpose is to measure whether a person's
circadian rhythm
A circadian rhythm (), or circadian cycle, is a natural, internal process that regulates the sleep–wake cycle and repeats roughly every 24 hours. It can refer to any process that originates within an organism (i.e., endogenous) and responds to ...
(biological clock) produces peak alertness in the morning, in the evening, or in between. The original study showed that the subjective time of peak alertness correlates with the time of
peak body temperature; morning types (
early birds) have an earlier temperature peak than evening types (
night owls), with intermediate types having temperature peaks between the morning and evening
chronotype
A chronotype is the behavioral manifestation of underlying circadian rhythm's myriad of physical processes. A person's chronotype is the propensity for the individual to sleep at a particular time during a 24-hour period. ''Eveningness'' (delayed ...
groups.
The MEQ is widely used in psychological and medical research and has been professionally cited more than 4,000 times.
MEQ questions
The standard MEQ consists of 19 multiple-choice questions, each having four or five response options. Some example questions are:
Responses to the questions are combined to form a composite score that indicates the degree to which the respondent favors morning versus evening. Subsequent researchers have created shorter versions with four, five, or six questions.
Related research
According to a 1997 study of identical and fraternal
twin
Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of TwinLast Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two e ...
s, 54% of variance in morningness–eveningness was due to genetic variability, 3% was due to age, and the rest was explained by non-shared environmental influences and errors in measurement.
A study in 2000 showed that both "morningness" and "eveningness" participants performed poorly in the morning on the Multidimensional Aptitude Battery (MAB) tests. It thus did not support the hypothesis that there is a reliable relationship between morningness–eveningness, time of day, and
cognitive ability
Cognitive skills, also called cognitive functions, cognitive abilities or cognitive capacities, are brain-based skills which are needed in acquisition of knowledge, manipulation of information and reasoning. They have more to do with the mechanisms ...
.
A study in 2008 examined the relationship between morningness and
anxiety
Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat w ...
in adults aged 40–63. It found a negative correlation in women, but not in men, suggesting that gender-related variables may be attributed to morningness and eveningness when looking at mood.
A study in 2009 examined differences between evening and morning types in the timing of
melatonin
Melatonin is a natural product found in plants and animals. It is primarily known in animals as a hormone released by the pineal gland in the brain at night, and has long been associated with control of the sleep–wake cycle.
In vertebrate ...
and core body temperature rhythms as well as objective and subjective sleepiness rhythms in a
controlled laboratory protocol. The evening types had significantly later timed rhythms for all these variables, particularly that of maximum alertness, which occurred, on average, in the middle of the day for morning types but only four hours before bedtime for evening types.
See also
*
Circadian rhythm sleep disorder
Circadian rhythm sleep disorders (CRSD), also known as circadian rhythm sleep-wake disorders (CRSWD), are a family of sleep disorders which affect the timing of sleep. CRSDs arise from a persistent pattern of sleep/wake disturbances that can be ...
References
External links
Automated Morningness–Eveningness Questionnaire(AutoMEQ)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Morningness-eveningness questionnaire
Neuropsychological tests
Circadian rhythm